Book 5
The Athenians shall restore to the Lacedaemonians, Coryphasium,cf. 4.3.2. Cythera,cf. 4.54. Methana,cf. 4.45.2. Pteleum, and Atalantecf. 2.32.; also they shall set at liberty the Lacedaemonian captives who are in the public prison at Athens or in public prison anywhere else that the Athenians hold sway, and the men of the Peloponnesus who are being besieged in Scione, and all besides who are allies of the Lacedaemonians in Scione,cf. 4.131. and those whom Brasidas sent into the place,cf. 4.123.4. as likewise any of the allies of the Lacedaemonians who are in the public prison in Athens, or in public prison anywhere else that the Athenians have sway. In like manner the Lacedaemonians and their allies shall restore whomsoever they have of the Athenians and their allies. 8.
"As to Scione, Torone,cf. 5.3.2. Sermyle, or any other city which the Athenians hold, the Athenians shall determine about these and the other cities as they may think best. 9. "The Athenians shall bind themselves by oaths with the Lacedaemonians and their allies, city by city;
and either party shall swear its customary oath in the form that is most binding,The Athenians, in ratifying treaties, swore by Zeus, Demeter and Apollo. See Fränkel, Hermes, xiii. 460. Ullrich suggests for Sparta the Dioscuri. seventeen men representing each city. The oath shall be as follows: 'I will abide by this agreement and this treaty, justly and without deceit.' For the Lacedaemonians and their allies there shall be an oath, in the same terms, with the Athenians. And both parties shall renew the oath year by year. 10.
"They shall erect pillars at Olympia, Delphi, the Isthmus, and on the Acropolis at Athens, and at Lacedaemon in the temple of Apollo of Amyclae.Two or three miles from Sparta.11.
"If either party forgets anything about any matter whatsoever, it shall be consistent with their oath for both, by means of fair discussion, to make a change at any point where it may seem good to both parties, the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians.
“The treaty begins at Lacedaemon in the ephorate of Pleistolas, on the fourth day from the end of the month Artemisium, and at Athens in the archonship of Alcaeus, on the sixth day from the end of the month Elaphebolion.
The following persons took oaths and ratified the treaty: on behalf of the Lacedaemonians, Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daïthus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Tellis, Alcinadas, Empedias, Menas, Laphilus; on behalf of the Athenians, Lampon, Isthmionicus, Nicias, Laches, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, Demosthenes.”
This treaty was concluded at the end of the winter and the opening of spring immediately after the City Dionysia.The City or Greater Dionysia began before the vernal equinox and lasted several days. Just ten years and a few days had passed since the first invasion of Attica and the beginning of this war.
But one must reckon according to the natural divisions of the year, not according to the catalogue of the names of officials in each place, be they archons or others who in consequence of some office mark the dates for past events, in the belief that this method is more to be trusted; for it is really inexact, since an event may have occurred in the beginning of their term of office, or in the middle, or at any other point as it happened.
But reckoning by summers and winters, as has been done in this history—inasmuch as each of these divisions is to be reckoned as half a year—it will be found that there have been ten summers and as many winters in this first war.Commonly referred to by the Attic orators as the Archidamian War. See Introduction, vol. i., p. xiii.
Now since the lot fell to the Lacedaemonians to make restoration first of the positions they held, they straightway set at liberty the prisoners of war that were in their hands, and sending Ischagoras, Menas, and Philocharidas as envoys to Thrace ordered Clearidas to give up Amphipolis to the Athenians, and the rest of the allies to accept the treaty, as it had been prescribed for each.
But the latter were unwilling to do so, as they thought that the terms were unfavourable to them; and Clearidas, to oblige the Chalcidians, did not give up Amphipolis, saying that he was unable to give it up against their will.
And he hastened in person, with envoys from the place, to Lacedaemon, in order to defend himself in case Ischagoras and his colleagues should accuse him of disobedience; and he wished also to learn whether the agreement could still be changed. But when he found that they were already bound by oath, he himself went back again in haste, with orders from the Lacedaemonians to give up Amphipolis if possible, or at all events to fetch away whatsoever Peloponnesians were in it.
The representatives of the alliesThe narrative recurs to the end of ch. xvii. happened to be still present in person at Lacedaemon, and as many of them as had not accepted the treaty were ordered by the Lacedaemonians to adopt it. But they, on the same pretext for which they had at firstcf. ch. xvii. (end). rejected it, still refused to accept it unless a fairer treaty were made.
Since, then, they would not hearken to them, the Lacedaemonians dismissed them, and proceeded to make an alliance with the Athenians by themselves, thinking that the Argives would by no means make an alliance with Sparta— since they had refused to renew the treaty with them when Ampelidas and Lichas went to Argos-and believing that they would not be dangerous to them without the Athenians, and that the rest of the Peloponnesians would be most likely to remain quiet;The text is surely not in order and numerous emendations have been offered. The rendering above assumes ευμμαχίαν ποιεῖσθαι as predicate of νομίζοντες, and adds καί, before νομίσαντες as correlative to τε—or, possibly, νομίσαντες may be causal. for, had it been possible, they might have gone over to the Athenians.ie. if there should be no treaty between Athens and Sparta, any dissatisfied state in the Peloponnesus might join the Athenian alliance and cause trouble. This danger would be removed by entering into the treaty, and also Argos, whose relations continued hostile, would be isolated.
Accordingly since envoys were present from the Athenians, a conference was held and they came to an agreement, and oaths were sworn and an alliance made on the following terms:
"The Lacedaemonians and Athenians shall be allies for fifty years on the following conditions: 1. "If any enemy invade the territory of the Lacedaemonians and be doing them harm, the Athenians shall help the Lacedaemonians in whatever way they can most effectively, with all their might; but if the enemy, after ravaging the country, shall have departed, that city shall be the enemy of the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, and shall suffer at the hands of both, and neither city shall make peace with it without the other. These conditions shall be observed honestly, zealously, and without fraud. 2.
"If any enemy invade the territory of the Athenians and be doing them harm, the Lacedaemonians shall help the Athenians in whatever way they can most effectively, with all their might; but if the enemy, after ravaging the country, shall have departed, that city shall be the enemy of the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, and shall suffer at the hands of both, and neither city shall make peace with it without the other.
These conditions shall be observed honestly, zealously, and without fraud. 3. "If there shall be an insurrection of slaves, the Athenians shall aid the Lacedaemonians with all their might, to the utmost of their power. 4.
"These articles shall be sworn to by the same persons who swore to the other treaty on both sides. They shall be renewed every year, the Lacedaemonians going to Athens at the Dionysia,The City Dionysia; cf. 5.20.1. the Athenians to Lacedaemon at the Hyacinthia.The festival of Apollo of Amyclae in the month Hyacinthius (Attic Hecatombaion).5.
"Each party shall erect a pillar, that in Lacedaemon by the temple of Apollo of Amyclae, that at Athens on the Acropolis by the temple of Athena. 6.
"If it shall seem good to the Lacedaemonians and Athenians to add or take away anything pertaining to the alliance, it shall be consistent with the oaths of both to do whatever may seem good to both.
“For the Lacedaemonians the following persons took the oath: Pleistoanax, Agis, Pleistolas, Damagetus, Chionis, Metagenes, Acanthus, Daïthus, Ischagoras, Philocharidas, Zeuxidas, Antippus, Alcinadas, Tellis, Empedias, Menas, Laphilus; for the Athenians, Lampon, Isthmionicus, Laches, Nicias, Euthydemus, Procles, Pythodorus, Hagnon, Myrtilus, Thrasycles, Theagenes, Aristocrates, Iolcius, Timocrates, Leon, Lamachus, Demosthenes.” This alliance was made not long after the treaty, and the Athenians restored to the Lacedaemonians the captives taken on the island;
and thus began the summer of the eleventh year. During these ten years the first war, of which the history has now been written, was waged continuously.
After the treaty and the alliance between the Lacedaemonians and Athenians, which were concluded at the end of the ten years' war, in the ephorate of Pleistolas at Lacedaemon and the archonship of Alcaeus at Athens, those who accepted these were at peace; but the Corinthians and some of the cities in the Peloponnesus attempted to disturb the agreements, and at once other trouble also began between Lacedaemon and her allies.
At the same time, too, the Lacedaemonians, as time went on, incurred the suspicion of the Athenians, by not acting in some matters in accordance with the articles of the agreement.
For six years and ten months the two powers abstained from invading each other's territory; in other regions, however, there was only an unstable cessation of arms and they kept on doing each other the greatest possible damage. But at last they were forced to break the treaty which had been concluded after the first ten years, and again engaged in open war.
This chapter forms a kind of second introduction, and was probably written after the author enlarged his plan from a history of the first ten years to that of the whole war. The history of these events, also, has been written by the same Thucydides, an Athenian, in the chronological order of events, by summers and winters, up to the time when the Lacedaemonians and their allies put an end to the dominion of the Athenians and took the Long Walls and Peiraeus.According to Plutarch, Lysander 15, this took place in April 404. Up to that event the war lasted twenty-seven years in all;
and if anyone shall not deem it proper to include the intervening truce in the war, he will not judge aright. For let him but look at the question in the light of the facts as they have been set forthOr, taking ἡ διὰ μέσου μέσου ξύμβασις as subject of διῄρηται “For if he will but observe how the truce was interrupted by actual military operations” and he will find that that can not fitly be judged a state of peace in which neither party restored or received all that had been agreed upon. And, apart from that, there were violations of the treaty on both sides in the Mantinean and Epidaurian wars,For these wars, see chs. xxxiii. f. and liii. f. as well as in other matters; the allies in Thrace, too, were no less hostile to Athens than before, and the Boeotians observed a truce which had to be renewed every ten days.
So that, including the first ten-years' war, the suspicious truce succeeding that, and the war which followed the truce, one will find that, reckoning according to natural seasons, there were just so many years as I have stated, and some few days over. He will also find, in the case of those who have made any assertion in reliance upon oracles, that this fact alone proved true;
for always, as I remember, from the beginning of the war until its close, it was said by many that it was fated to last thrice nine years.
I lived through the whole war, being of an age to form judgments, and followed it with close attention, so as to acquire accurate information. It befell me also to be banished from my own country for twenty years after my command at Amphipolis,cf. 4.104.4. and being conversant with affairs on both sides, especially with those of the Peloponnesians by reason of my banishment, to gain at my leisure a better acquaintance with the course of events.
The difference, then, which arose after the ten years, and the breaking of the truce and the subsequent hostilities, I will now proceed to relate.
After the conclusion of the fifty years' treaty and the subsequent alliance, the embassies from the Peloponnesus, which had been summoned for this business, withdrew from Lacedaemon. The rest went home;
but the Corinthians proceeded first to Argos and entered into communication with certain of the Argive magistrates, saying that, since the Lacedaemonians had made a treaty and alliance with the Athenians, hitherto their bitterest enemies, not for the good of the Peloponnesus but for its enslavement, the Argives ought to be considering how the Peloponnesus could be saved; and should pass a decree, that any Hellenic city which is autonomous and offers settlement of disputes by fair and impartial trials, may, if it so wishes, make an alliance with the Argives for mutual defence of their territories; and that they should appoint a few men with absolutely full powers, and not discuss matters before the people, so that any who may fail to persuade the popular assembly may not become known to the Lacedaemonians. And they asserted that many would join them through hatred of the Lacedaemonians.
The Corinthians, then, having suggested these things, went home.
The Argive magistrates, on hearing the proposals, reported them to their government and people, and the Argives passed the decree and chose twelve men with whom any of the Hellenes who pleased might conclude an alliance, except the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians; neither of these should be allowed to make a treaty with Argos without the express consent of the Argive people.
These proposals the Argives accepted the more readily, in the first place because they saw that they should have war with the Lacedaemonians—for the treaty with them was on the point of expiring—and, moreover, because they had hoped to secure the hegemony of the Peloponnesus. For at this time Lacedaemon had fallen into very ill repute and was despised on account of its misfortunes, while the Argives had attained an excellent position in all respects, having had no part of the burden of the war with Athens, but rather, as they were at peace with both parties, having reaped a harvest from it.
Thus the Argives were ready to receive into their alliance any of the Hellenes that were so inclined.
The Mantineans and their allies were the first to join them, through fear of the Lacedaemonians. For a part of Arcadia had been reduced to subjection by the Mantineans, while the war with the Athenians was still going on, and they thought that the Lacedaemonians, now that they had leisure, would not suffer them to retain their sovereignty. So they turned gladly to Argos, regarding it as a powerful state, one always at variance with the Lacedaemonians, and under a democratic form of government like themselves.